[yibg]

I can certainly relate to this, my poison of choice was diablo 2. At first playing and discovering all the various items and stats was fun. Killing monsters and advancing was fun. At some point it just became a habit, then towards the end it became a chore. Yet I still spent endless hours doing it. For me at least it could probably been classified as an addiction.

There were some fond memories from it, and there were certainly many enjoyable moments. But it was certainly not done in moderation. I'm also glad I pulled out of it, and didn't get into a similar situation with a different game.

[gwd]

Diablo 2 is exactly the kind of game I felt like a pointless time sink. Your character gains new skills, but you? Not so much. At least playing a competitive FPS (or something like Starcraft) you're gaining skills.

[musicale]

Usually I'm mostly done after beating a Diablo game a couple of times at various difficulty levels, but I still find them fun to play periodically. I think the fact that they become tedious after a while is not a bad thing since otherwise you'd never stop playing! They are also fun and easy games to pick up and play with friends or family (especially D3 in couch co-op mode.)

Regarding game vs. IRL skills, I enjoy Guitar Hero quite a bit, but Rocksmith actually improves your ability to play a real guitar.

Rock Band drums are pretty close to electronic drums though, and vocals are actual vocals.

And as I've mentioned, Ring Fit Adventure (which I'm still playing) kind of levels you up. I found similar effects with Wii Fit, where years after stopping playing (and switching to non-balance based exercises) my sense of balance was surprisingly better than it had been before I started playing the game. I expect other physical games like Dance Dance Revolution are good for physical coordination, and I expect twitch games such as FPSs are good for eye-hand coordination and reaction time.

[yibg]

Looking back yes not much skills gained. At the time what kept me in there were a couple of things:

1) chasing the next thing. Next item, next perfect build, next stat.

2) the multi player aspect. Be it pvp or a coop game with some online “friends”

Both of these are good ways to keep people engaged / addicted I guess.

[gwd]

Yeah, I definitely felt the pull of the first thing, and after a while resented it, because I felt like I was being manipulated.

I definitely think there's value in the second thing, though. Basically, I used to tell people that I play video games "socially" -- until a few months ago (when I decided to actually skill up on Starcraft 2), I almost never played video games unless it was with a group of other people.